How to Grow Your Retirement Wealth

When it comes to building a dynamic financial plan, we believe it helps to think in terms of buckets.

At PKAG, we use four: Income, Growth, Health, and Legacy.

Together, they can help ensure your money supports the life you want today, tomorrow, and for generations to come.

1. The Income Bucket: Your Lifestyle Engine

The purpose of the Income Bucket is designed to provide steady and predictable income.

We first start by understanding your lifestyle and determine:

• What you need

• What you spend

• What matters most

Then we design an income plan that can help keep your cash flow consistent and reliable.

To do this, we reverse-engineer your lifestyle by analyzing your family’s cash flow, identifying any income gaps, and developing tax-efficient investment strategies to help meet your needs today and for the years ahead.

Our goal is simple: to help you live comfortably with a plan that’s tax-efficient and reviewed regularly so you can keep more of what you earn.

2. The Growth Bucket: Keeping Your Money Working

While your Income Bucket covers today’s needs, the Growth Bucket fuels tomorrow.

It’s a professionally managed portfolio designed to grow your wealth and replenish your income over time.

We draw on leading global research firms and leading sub-advisors who help us stay responsive to changing markets.

And your portfolio is continuously monitored using a dynamic, top-down economic strategy designed to optimize growth while managing tax implications.

3. The Health Bucket: Protecting What Matters Most

Your health has a major impact on the quality of your life, and can also have one of the biggest impacts on your financial well-being.

That’s why the Health Bucket helps protect your income and lifestyle if a health issue arises.

We work with you to understand the level of health care you might want, identify potential risks to your income or assets, and build a plan that covers those possibilities.

From insurance options to tax-efficient medical strategies, we help you stay prepared for life’s “what ifs.”

4. The Legacy Bucket: Passing on Your Values and Wealth

Finally, the Legacy Bucket focuses on what comes next, ensuring your hard-earned assets are passed on the way you intend.

We help clarify your wishes, support you in preparing or updating estate documents like wills and powers of attorney, and design a tax-smart estate plan that reflects your family values and charitable goals.

Because leaving a legacy is about building your peace of mind and knowing your family is safe.

Putting It All Together

Across all four buckets, we apply our ‘3D’ tax overlay model of

• Deduct

• Divide

• Defer

Which tests each strategy for tax-efficiency.

This ensures that every part of your plan works together to protect your wealth from unnecessary tax erosion.

Each bucket serves a different role, but together they form a complete strategy - one that protects your income, grows your wealth, safeguards your health, and secures your legacy.

That’s how we help families move from financial uncertainty to financial confidence - with the common-sense approach of making sure your buckets have what they need.

This commentary is intended to provide general information and should not be construed as legal, investment, tax or other advice. Individual circumstances and current events are critical to sound planning; anyone wishing to act on the information presented should consult with his or her legal, financial advisor, or tax specialist.

David Popowich and Faisal Karmali are Investment Advisors with CIBC Wood Gundy in Calgary. The views of David Popowich, Faisal Karmali, and guest author do not necessarily reflect those of CIBC World Markets Inc. This information, including any opinion, is based on various sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy cannot be guaranteed and is subject to change. CIBC Private Wealth consists of services provided by CIBC and certain of its subsidiaries, including CIBC Wood Gundy, a division of CIBC World Markets Inc.